Price

With that message arriving in my Xbox One inbox literally
minutes into my first ever match on Titanfall, I flashed
back to most of my multiplayer matches on Call of Duty. Fitting, since the developer of
Titanfall -- Respawn Entertainment -- was created by the
guys who made the CoD series.

Titanfall is the season's flagship Xbox One release and
its inherently deserved comparison to CoD has diminished
significance once you admire the rest of the game's premise. Set on
a "war-torn" planet, the sci-fi multiplayer-only game centres
around two teams of six human-controlled players and a bevy of
AI-controlled bots fighting to control territories and bases.

The key difference to many other shooters is that battle in
Titanfall is commanded alongside building-size titan mechs
that "fall" from the sky on your command. These articulate machines
can fight on their own, guarding a position on a battlefield or
following you and automatically engaging enemies; or you can hop
within them and annihilate enemies with heavy weaponry
manually.

Fortunately for me, I didn't suck at Titanfall (I was
still learning the button maps on the Xbox controller). The game is
actually wonderfully accessible and balanced. Familiarity with
first-person shooters is advised, and a basic appreciation for
player-versus-player gameplay is beneficial, but the game doesn't
punish you for being a virgin in its orgy of gunfire and
explosions.

It may seem surprising given that every player can command a
titan, but that's the genius behind Titanfall -- it still
balances perfectly. Mechs soak up bullets from human players with
minimal impact, but against another titan they're as vulnerable as
a human is fighting another human. You'll need to wait a few
minutes between titan deployments, and as such you'll find quickly
that running all-guns-blazing into battle is no more wise in a
machine than it is in your own skin. You'll be cautious, and its
that natural caution that makes mech-versus-meatbag feel so good.
Experienced players will settle into this quickly and learn that
good technique involves fighting on foot, alongside titan and
within titan in near equal measure.

The game's maps are also testament to Respawn's heritage as a
multiplayer game designer. They're perfectly sized for the number of players in each team. In
Titanfall though there's an emphasis on what the developer
calls "verticality", which in this context means "you can run up
the side of buildings". It's a difference you don't really
appreciate at first until you get used to the maps -- being able to
flee from a titan up the stairs of a derelict building, leap out of
a window, scale the opposite wall and vault across a structure
adjacent just isn't something you get that often in a multiplayer
shooter. It gives maps a sense of legitimacy in spite of the unreal
sci-fi backdrop.

Graphically the game is beautiful, with a vibrant colour palette
and detailed backgrounds. "Does it look like a next-gen game?" is a
question I've heard at least once and the answer is, "Well,
sometimes." It's evidently taking advantage of the Xbox One's power
but I couldn't help feeling more visually blown away by
Killzone Shadow Fall (seriously, what's with the "fall" in
all these next-gen titles?). There's no right or wrong answer here,
and safe to say Titanfall is beautiful and the 60 frames
per second presentation is the icing on the cake, despite the
console resolution argument.

So it's beautiful, well-balanced, accessible for newbies and
rewarding for elitists. Where are the flaws? They're subtle, and
not everyone would consider them flaws per se. As
attractive as the maps are, weather is annoyingly consistent --
consistently nice, that is. Where's the torrential rain at
nighttime? Where's the snow and fog affecting visibility? Small
details, but a greater variety of environmental challenges would
make welcome additions in future map packs, which are sure to
arrive.

Additionally, there's no private match functionality -- yet.
Raised as an issue at Titanfall's London launch party,
Respawn's Abbie Heppe told me private matches were coming in a
future update. Given the game's exclusive multiplayer focus, it
still seems like a bizarre oversight -- and even more bizarre if a
deliberate one.

Finally, although by no means a negative point, it's worth
pointing out that the "campaign" story mode is little more than the
glue between the table legs -- and nobody is buying their furniture
from Ikea and expecting to be transfixed by the adhesive. But
the game has no single-player option and that may be a turn-off for
players who prefer an easier battle against bots rather than
humans. The campaign guides players through a fairly unfulfilling
narrative, which acts as little more than a useful way
of exploring the maps for the first time. It reminds me of
Unreal 3, which technically had a story mode, but it was
so devoid of significance you had to wonder why it was there at
all.

ConclusionTitanfall is a terrific game, accessible and rewarding.
It's clearly the initial release in a long line of updates, map
packs and improvements -- and it's off to a strong start. It's not
without its drawbacks, particularly for gamers who hate having to
fight human players in games. But speaking personally, I've
never been a multiplayer FPS fan and I'm already looking forward to
jumping back into my titan.

And to that player who dissed me in my first match: watch out,
buddy. I'm coming for you -- I know the controls now.

This review was based on the Xbox One version. The game will
also available for Xbox 360 and PC.